10 Things You Need To Know This Morning

Peter Arispe from Mexico
works as a quality control checker at the American Apparel
factory in downtown Los Angeles October 17,
2008.REUTERS/Lucy
Nicholson

Good morning! Here's what you need to know:

It's A Yellen Rally. The world stock markets are
on a tear in the wake of yesterday's dovish Fed monetary
policy announcement. In Europe, Britain's FTSE is up 0.8%,
France's CAC 40 is up 0.9%, Germany's DAX is up 0.8%, Spain's
IBEX is up 1.0%, and Italy's FTSE MIB is up 1.1%. This follows
huge gains in Asia where Japan's Nikkei closed up 1.6% and
Australia's S&P/ASX closed up 1.6%.

ICYMI, Here's What Yellen Said. From yesterday's
FOMC
statement: "When the Committee decides to begin to remove
policy accommodation, it will take a balanced approach consistent
with its longer-run goals of maximum employment and inflation of
2 percent. The Committee currently anticipates that, even after
employment and inflation are near mandate-consistent levels,
economic conditions may, for some time, warrant keeping the
target federal funds rate below levels the Committee views as
normal in the longer run." Here's BI's
Joe Weisenthal: "What that means is, she's not overly
concerned about the economy overheating, and not inclined to
tighten policy early. And that's the big takeaway from
[Wednesday's] FOMC events. At every opportunity, Yellen & Co.
took the dovish turn."

Facebook Goes Down. The social network went down
across
parts of Asia and Europe. According to Bloomberg's Tim Culpan
and Bianca Vazquez Toness, the roughly 30 minute outage affected
users in Tokyo, Johannesburg, London, Paris, New Delhi,
Amsterdam, Moscow, and Taipei. "We resolved the issue quickly,
and we are now back to 100 percent," said the company.

American Apparel's Dov Charney Is Out. Dov
Charney, the controversial founder of American Apparel was ousted
by the company's board for cause. "We take no joy in this, but
the Board felt it was the right thing to do,”
board member Allan Mayer said in a statement. “Dov Charney
created American Apparel, but the Company has grown much larger
than any one individual and we are confident that its greatest
days are still ahead."

Roll-Royce Buybacks. British industrial giant
Rolls-Royce is the latest company to announce that it'll shovel a
ton of cash back to its shareholders. Its board announced that it
would launch a 1 billion pound — or $1.7 billion —
share buyback program. CEO John Rishton explained: "As no
material acquisitions are planned, and reflecting the strength of
our balance sheet, we will
return the proceeds of the Energy sale to our shareholders."

UK Retail Sales Slip. UK retail sales fell 0.5%
month-over-month in May, which is the first decline in four
months. This was largely due to a 2.4% drop in food sales.
According to Bloomberg's Fergal O'Brien, this more than offset a
jump in apparel sales thanks to demand for replica soccer jerseys
ahead of the World Cup.

Jobless Claims. At 8:30 a.m. ET, we'll get teh
latest weekly tally of initial unemployment claims. Economists
estimate claims slipped to 313,000 from 317,000 last week.
"Initial jobless claims continue to linger below 320k," said
Nomura economists. "This suggests that layoffs have bottomed out
and that more hiring will be needed to spur job growth."

Philly Fed. At 10:00 a.m. ET, we'll get the
Philadelphia Fed' June Business Outlook report. Economists
estimate the regional report's activity index fell to 14.0 in
June from 15.4 in May. "Last month the new orders and shipment
indices both posted meaningful declines, suggesting that the
underlying trend is a bit weaker than the solid headline print
would suggest," said Barclays economists. "That being said, all
of the major components remain firmly in expansionary territory
and are consistent with an improving manufacturing sector."

Yo. A startup mobile app called Yo — which
allows user to message the word "Yo" to friends — briefly
attracted a lot of attention and ire on Wednesday. Venture
capitalist Marc Andreessen warned naysayers about dismissing the
concept too quickly. From
his tweets this morning: "Yo is an instance of "one-bit
communication" — a message with no content other than the fact
that it exists. Yes or no. Yo or no yo ... Other instances of
one-bit communication: Police siren, flashing stop light, "Open"
sign, light turned on, taxicab roof indicator lit." Andreesen
noted that deliberate missed calls, a form of one-bit
communications, are popular in developing parts of Asia where
phone calls are just too expensive.